President Joe Biden warned Americans that time had run out to keep global warming from causing catastrophic weather events in the United States.
“Climate change is real. We’re living through it now. We don’t have any more time,” Biden said.
Biden spoke about global warming during a briefing with local leaders in New Jersey on the destructive flooding that occurred in the region after the remains of Hurricane Ida unleashed heavy rains.
He noted that climate scientists had warned for decades about extreme weather events and indicated the world had failed to react quickly enough.
“Every part of the country is getting hit by extreme weather,” Biden said. “We’re now living in real-time what the country is going to look like. We can’t turn it back very much but we can prevent it from getting worse.”
The record rainfall and flooding surprised officials in the Northeast last week, as over 50 deaths in the region were attributed to the storms.
Biden said powerful hurricanes like Ida and wildfires in the West and only proved that climate change was real.
“I think we’re at one of those inflection points where we either act or we’re going to be, we’re going to be in real, real trouble. Our kids are going to be in real trouble,” Biden said.